Restoring a round ram vs upgrading it

I'm been crunching some numbers, and since I have to buy all handles, and the table is worn out enought that is like a U (barely) is it worth it to restore it or is it best to upgrade it? I was thinking in a CNC upgrade, with some nema23 (would they be enought to move the table?) its impossible for me living in Uruguay to buy a premade or finished CNC kit to adapt, the price would skyrocket and go waaaaaay over 10 times what I payed for the mill itself.

Anyone has done a cnc conversion at home with linux using gecko controllers or anything alike? Is it worth it?

My idea is to do steps, first get the motors and controllers, and adapt them to fit the mill table. After that is working, add the head motor to get the z movement and that's about it. Then get it to do what the PC says instead of just pressing a buttom and have linear movement. Apologize for my bad english maybe I'm misunderstood in what I'm writting, hope I explained it the best.

I'm been crunching some numbers, and since I have to buy all handles, and the table is worn out enought that is like a U (barely) is it worth it to restore it or is it best to upgrade it? I was thinking in a CNC upgrade, with some nema23 (would they be enought to move the table?) its impossible for me living in Uruguay to buy a premade or finished CNC kit to adapt, the price would skyrocket and go waaaaaay over 10 times what I payed for the mill itself.

Anyone has done a cnc conversion at home with linux using gecko controllers or anything alike? Is it worth it?

My idea is to do steps, first get the motors and controllers, and adapt them to fit the mill table. After that is working, add the head motor to get the z movement and that's about it. Then get it to do what the PC says instead of just pressing a buttom and have linear movement. Apologize for my bad english maybe I'm misunderstood in what I'm writting, hope I explained it the best.

Your "English" passes for "native speaker" in all respects. I abuse it far worse!

Uruguay and parts.... Well.

A round-ram BirdPort is just NOT one of the most useful of the breed. I'd not try to CNC it.
Better to restore it to "mostly" as-built, then either:

- JF "run what yah got",

ELSE go see what might have been smuggled in as to "at least" the early - or better-yet LATE "dovetail ram" BirdPorts...

..... or even a vertical mill from Brazilian, Basque, or Taiwanese factories.

Most especally if yah can find an already-CNC vertical with dodgy electronics where new - or rebuildable - controls are needed ... and exist.

Linux can run this stuff, yes.

Uruguay is know to some among us as having more - and better - IS/IT expertise than the average for LATAM.

"You can do this" with a round-ram BirdPort.... "necessity being the mother .......... of invention"

...but it's likely to be about as tedious as eating Chivito through a soda-straw!

Your "English" passes for "native speaker" in all respects. I abuse it far worse!

Uruguay and parts.... Well.

A round-ram BirdPort is just NOT one of the most useful of the breed. I'd not try to CNC it.
Better to restore it to "mostly" as-built, then either:

- JF "run what yah got",

ELSE go see what might have been smuggled in as to "at least" the early - or better-yet LATE "dovetail ram" BirdPorts...

..... or even a vertical mill from Brazilian, Basque, or Taiwanese factories.

Most especally if yah can find an already-CNC vertical with dodgy electronics where new - or rebuildable - controls are needed ... and exist.

Linux can run this stuff, yes.

Uruguay is know to some among us as having more - and better - IS/IT expertise than the average for LATAM.

"You can do this" with a round-ram BirdPort.... "necessity being the mother .......... of invention"

...but it's likely to be about as tedious as eating Chivito through a soda-straw!

2CW

Thanks for your reply, I can't stop lol with that chivito comment, means you know your uruguayan food hehe. There's no CNC availables here for less than maybe 25-50k they are almost all new and in big shops, none will sell them for cheap. I paid 680bucks on my round ram and the closest to that would be a 2600k chinese vertical mill, with no cnc or digital position meters with rails. In other words a very expensive mill with no accesories.

I understand the dove tail is way better, but I couldn't find anything better for the money I could spare on a mill. This was my best shot at actually owning a milling machine that's any good. I rather keep the round ram than using a light chinese mill like the one at my university machine shop, even the engineer that give the machine class told me this round ram is way more stable and solid than the one we have there.

I'm specially reminded by people close to me for doing "crazy" things, anything I say I want to do, most people would call me crazy or says its impossible, it only makes me even more eager to get it done.

Could it be a better idea to install new rails and fabricate a new saddle using the mill to upgrade it itself. I have seen some guys build a CNC machine from scratch using a mill. Could this be the best way to go? Instad of building it from scratch, just build the parts needed to upgrade the round ram?

Not exactly an accident. Nearby Salvadorean place serves a very close analog to it. There's even Uruguayan tinned beef in the hard-rations larder. But I know better than to hold that not-quite-travesty against yah! Or the Argies - having spent some time in BA and on the muddy river-ocean y'all share.

As to beef? My Cantonese wife was GOB smacked a trim, slim, lean and lovely lady at next table could sit down in BA and make a standard-serving steak rapidly vanish.

Where "standard" is the usual beef-country full one kilo AKA two-point-two US pounds, Avoir!

So much for an effing "double quarter-pounder" Micky-Dee s**t-burger!

Coupla places in Uruguay long on my list to buy property if we get another Dumbasscrap elected to US Pretzeldent. "Slick Willy", and Hussein Bi-Damna I went off to South China for a few years. No longer an option.

...even the engineer that give the machine class told me this round ram is way more stable and solid than the one we have there.

True as far as it goes, but so, too that a tapeworm is a more survivable deal than Ebola Zaire.

Problem isn't the underpowered MT2 spindle nor the lard ASS under a round-ram.
It's that the ram IS "round".

All manual, no big deal.

CNC likes fixed points of reference to home or reset to, then launch OFF from.
That's not as easy with a round-ram as a dovetail one. BeePees and BirdPorts FLEX. whilst in the cut. Round is just worse at it, not better.

Near 60 years since I've taught, classroom environment, but... young, student, not wealthy?

Don't ever fixate on only what you have in front of you .. unless it is an aroused female with a hunger to be properly dealt with RIGHT NOW!

How about you utilize the RR BeePee pretty much "as is", compensating for "warts and all", to build a SEPARATE CNC critter from such components as CAN be had?

Could be a "team effort" and a robotics project, for that matter.

Y'see the "portable" part of the initial value is in the coding skill, but "proven bug-free" no crashes, not classroom theoretical and only on the screen.. no blood, crashed tooling, ruint work "for-real". Better value yet, the management of teams and projects. Or at least recognition as a consistent key contributor who raises the level of the performance of others, their "betters" included.

Your experience and circumstances, the learning and opening up of opportunityfor "the next step" is still more important by half than ANY mere "hardware" - even if.. you are a 40-year-old evening student, not a youngster.

Those expensive NEW CNC goods? They need supervision as well as operators. So, too the factory. And its bank...and the City, then Country they sit in...etc..

A future not wisely planned for may not happen at all. More focus on the windscreen. Less on the rear-view mirror.

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